The Great Gig in the Sky
by DarkHorseBlueSky
Summary: "Did you ever meet him?" "I showed him all the kingdoms of the world." Wherein a man from Galilee will not understand that God has abandoned him, and Crawley struggles with why God abandoned her. [Oneshot. Rated T because Crowley is my emotional punching bag, and he makes some fun four-letter noises when I hit him too hard.]


**Note #1: Crowley uses she/her pronouns for the duration of this fic. **

**Note #2: Although the identity and historical impact of TV-canon Jesus is left purposefully ambiguous, I have characterized him according to Christian canon as the Son of God. I am neither Jewish nor Muslim, so I cannot claim to understand where my characterization might be seen as contradictory to adjacent faiths. However, like all Good Omens fic, this is also purely fictional and probably blasphemous to the Christian church as well, so...you're in good company, I guess? **

**Note #3: Title is from a Pink Floyd song.**

**Note #4: This fic is dedicated to my sister, the only person who can listen to me as I blabber for hours about how imagined social constructs, the covenant of Grace, and probably-incorrect theoretical physics are all interconnected.**

* * *

_Of the Book of Matthew, Chapter 4, vs. 1-11, King James translation. _

_Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. _

_And when the tempter came to him, he said, "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." _

_But he answered and said, "It is written, _'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.'"

_Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, "If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, _'He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.'"

_Jesus said unto him, "It is written again, _'Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.'"

_Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and saith unto him, "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.'" _

_Then saith Jesus unto him, "Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, _'Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.'"

_Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him. _

* * *

Crawley didn't think there was anything to _do. _At this rate, the man was just going to kick the bucket on his own.

The young man had been foraging in the hot Judean desert for weeks. Though "foraging" was a bit generous for what he was actually doing — sleeping with his head turned to the clear night skies and the cold, sharp rocks pressing into his back; watching the sun rise above a mountain stream, nibbling on less than a handful of berries or roots; ducking under a tree or inside a cave to talk to himself. To talk to _Her. _He talked to Her for hours, often getting a little riled up, sometimes shouting, more often crying. He would only fall asleep when he had worn himself out, and even then, it was only after he had watched the stars for a time and thanked Her for every little thing he could think of. It was like he didn't even notice his body shriveling, his skin blistering, his limbs weakening. Didn't seem to make the connection, no amount of praise could convince Her not to hurt him.

Crawley looked back down to the scroll in her hands. According to Below, the man's name was Jesus, son of Joseph. He was twenty-nine years old. As ordinary as they come. A pure-blooded Jew, which was a hard thing to be in that day. Poor, which was harder. The son of a carpenter and a woman who trailed old rumors like a tattered bridal veil, an infidelity in her youth, a quiet sin that brought forth the man depicted in the infernal file. The sketch showed a smiling creature, dark skin and hair like a black lamb's wool. A soft beard. Eyes that, even in the rough, loveless graphite strokes, glimmered with something _unnerving. _

Frowning, Crawley lowered the scroll. She sat on a rock outcrop, the noon sun practically cooking her alive in her dark robes, her feet dangling lazily over the edge. Forty feet below her was the floor of a winding chasm, cut by a river that didn't exist anymore, used as a road by bandits, foolish merchants, and dying Nazarenes on a religious fast.

Between the heels of her sandals was the unmoving body of Jesus.

Sighing, she pulled her feet back onto solid ground. Then she let her wings out and stepped off the cliff's edge. Jesus had not moved in a good half hour, which was the sign.

It had been a long few days, following a long spat Below.

"Did I stutter?" Beelzebub had snarled. "I said, when he's almozzzt dead, then you do your work. Routine holy man desanctification, shouldn't be hard."

Crawley had scowled. "You can't feel it? There's something up with this one. He's no rabbi, he's a weird kid from some hick town."

"All of them are, if you want to be picky about it," ze had replied.

"He'll never take the bait," Crawley had argued.

"He's human. They always take it."

She had bitten her lip at that. The file said he was human. Her gut instinct said something else. "It's a waste of my time."

"It's orderzzz," Beelzebub only said.

Which brought Crawley here, standing over the body of Jesus, watching the staggered rise and fall of his torso. His clothes were tattered ribbons. His face was pressed into the sand, which couldn't be comfortable. In the three days she had watched him, Crawley had never gotten this close to see directly, but she knew he had gashes across his face and chest from a bad tumble.

She knelt and tapped his shoulder. Under her touch, he stiffened.

Groaning, Jesus struggled to his hands and knees. His eyes were crusted shut with dirt and blood and he jerked his trembling hand across the ground, searching blindly for his crude walking stick, which had rolled a few feet away. Crawley nudged it over with her foot. As Jesus used it to pull himself to his feet, she frowned. Could the staff count for the mission? She had been tastefully inattentive at the mandatory training for new desanctification procedure, relying instead on the sample script they passed out. Last-minute desanctification only required a man turn against God in his final hours; accepting demonic help was one way to do this. But she finally shrugged. It probably wouldn't count. Hell had a higher bar than that, even for someone like her.

Jesus knew Crawley was there. He had to. He started walking again in the narrow strip of shade, leaning heavily against the walking stick and feeling along the rough chasm wall. All the while, Crawley trailed behind him, wondering where he thought he was going. The silence of the wilderness was broken only by Crawley's slow, lazy footsteps and Jesus' soft whimpers of pain. Maybe the whimpers formed words. Maybe not. It wasn't in Aramaic or Greek or any language Crawley had heard recently.

Finally she had enough. "The river's the other way, actually."

Jesus said nothing, just kept limping on.

"You know," said Crawley, "it's rude to ignore someone who just helped you. Twice now. Dehydration, not a pleasant way to die."

Still no response. Crawley frowned.

"Oh, I apologize, I was talking to the _other _dying man in the desert valley. Sorry for the confusion."

Even still, no response. Maybe the long fast had deafened the man, too.

Impatient and cranky from the heat, Crawley also decided to abandon manners and put this to the test. She snapped her fingers. A sound as loud and sharp as a gunshot fired across the canyon. Guns had not been invented yet, but loud and frightening sounds were a universal constant, and Crawley was quite fond of a few of them for their practical joke purposes. Jesus jumped like a spooked rabbit and stumbled, losing his walking stick.

Crawley scowled. There. If the man didn't go into cardiac arrest, that would get his attention.

She waited while he fumbled around for a while, scrabbling at the ground for the stick, not finding it, finally relenting to his fatigue and slumping down against the wall. His mouth fell open, panting for breaths that were becoming harder.

"Will you ever give up?" Crawley asked. "You keep doing this. Starving, falling, getting back up again. It's exhausting."

Jesus just sat there for a while. Then, struggling against the crust of dirt and blood, he cracked open his eyelids and lifted a hand.

"Come, my child," he croaked.

She raised an eyebrow. Of the greetings she had expected, that was not among them. His file had mentioned him to be familiar with demonic activity, though it hadn't elaborated, so she had expected something more along the lines of "Get thee hence, Satan".

"I am much older than you," she said plainly.

Jesus didn't look away. It was more of a squint, actually.

"No," he replied. "I am afraid not."

The man was losing his mind. But she might as well indulge him in his final hours, so she sat down beside him.

"Can't say I'll ever get the hang of this — hrm — whatever it is," Crawley commented, shifting awkwardly on the uneven stone.

"Sitting," said Jesus, deadpan.

"I know what sitting is. I mean the bones. The funny shaped ones. The, this thing, especially." She knocked the palm of her heel against her hip.

"The pelvis," Jesus offered.

"It's terribly uncomfortable. Inflexible."

"I suppose."

"Too brittle. Say — didn't you break yours, in that awful tumble?"

His mouth strained. Perhaps a smile. "It is written, _'You shall leave none of the passover lamb unto the morning, nor break any bone of it.' _"

She raised her other eyebrow. The man was too weak to walk, but healthy enough to quote Pesach law. Not necessarily out of the ordinary for the holy men she encountered, but certainly so for an illiterate carpenter raving from heat stroke.

But she didn't say that, only, "Good, got the bones part. Keep it up and there won't be any left of you in the morning, too."

Another weak smile. Jesus closed his eyes, tilted his chin up, and sighed.

"Why are you here?" he asked.

"Heard you were familiar with demons; can't figure it out?"

"I ask for many answers that I already have," said Jesus. "I like to see which one you give."

Crawley hesitated. Then she scowled, growing irritated again. "I don't have time for word games."

"Time is an excuse for creatures like you."

"I'm here because this is my _job _," Crawley retorted. "Now, please, I'd like to get on with it."

"Alright," said Jesus. "You may continue."

She glared at him for a very long time. He wasn't looking at her, his face melded into the same stiff grimace of struggling with death, but she was somehow quite certain that he could see her expression _and _that he was silently laughing at her.

"Well?" said Jesus after a while.

"You threw me off," she hissed. "There's a _ssscript _for these sorts of things — you didn't follow the script."

"You have a script? Is this your first desanctification, Crawley?"

She couldn't recall telling him her name. It didn't matter. That was the least of her concerns. She recoiled like a spring.

"How — you little brat, this is _not _my first time, I beg your _pardon." _

"I've just never met a demon who uses a script," Jesus said mildly.

"Actually, they all do," said Crawley. "It's not precise, but there's always a pattern. This pattern is _find a dying holy man, share in his misery, remind him that his god has abandoned him, get him to curse God and die. _The only reason it's taken this long with you is you're addled enough to be glib about your own merciless death. And that isn't in the standard script because no holy man is like that! You don't even _care _. The Almighty's letting you die and you're too stupid to care."

She huffed like an angry child and folded her arms. She had half a mind to just strike him down right here, twitch a muscle under her eye and transform into a being so hideous that the man's heart would stop, quick, easy, done.

"Letting me die," Jesus echoed flatly.

"Yes, is it obvious now?" Crawley asked. "The Almighty is letting you perish of hunger and wound infection in a desert. Bravo, you figured it out."

"I do not hunger for anything," said Jesus. "I am already satisfied."

"You've lost your marbles," said Crawley.

He cocked his head like a bird and examined Crawley, scanning her up and down. Not in the ways that she tended to attract in this form, the surveying of restless men or, on occasion, the wishing of lonely women. It was a calculating look. But Crawley didn't even allow him to do that. She stood up with another indignant huff.

"Look," she said, rubbing her temples. "The truth is, I was assigned this case, yes, but I also don't want to see it end like this."

Jesus shook his head. "It will not end."

"You can barely move, your body is falling apart at the seams, it's not the time to be optimistic."

"It will not end because I was not sent to die this way," said Jesus.

"Sent? By whom?" Crawley echoed, incredulous.

"My Father. _Elaha. _"

He said that with such flippancy, such comfort that Crawley actually stepped back, fearing that the Almighty would strike him down on the spot. The file had said Jesus was a holy man, not a blasphemer. Though come to think of it, there was a note that he might be an egotist. Now she understood quite well why Jesus was so stubborn about accepting his death.

Then, in the way that spiteful schemes do, an idea dawned on her. She could use this.

"The Almighty sent you?" asked Crawley, pretending to take it seriously.

Jesus nodded.

"After all these years…really?"

"You're mocking me," said Jesus.

"I would never," said Crawley solemnly.

"You continue to mock me."

Whether or not he knew she was mocking him, it didn't matter. Crawley was having fun. She wrinkled her nose and bowed towards the man on the ground.

"Great Prince, you misunderstand," she said. "On the contrary — I tremble to see what power the Almighty has bestowed upon you."

"Lord, give me strength," murmured Jesus. Though it didn't sound like a genuine prayer so much as a sigh.

Crawley snapped her fingers. "There's an idea!" she grinned. "This is quite the mess you're in, starving and such. But the way I figure, if you're God's beloved Son, there's really no mess at all — you can just wave your hand and miracle your problems away, can't you?"

"It doesn't work like that."

"Why not? You said yourself, it's not your fate to die today."

Jesus was looking tired. Good. Now inspired, Crawley scooped up a handful of stones and thrust them out to him.

"You're starving, so eat," she said. "Turn these stones into bread and I'll leave you be."

_"No." _

"It's not hard! Even the minor angels can do it. I won't judge if it's your first miracle, either, I swear — "

"This is a joke to you, Crawley."

"I'm sure bread would be delicious right now. Shouldn't matter if your tummy's shrunk, either; miracle food can't make you feel anything but nice and full and healthy — "

"It is written," said Jesus, "_ 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. _'"

He pushed away Crawley's hands, scattering the stones on the ground. She was so surprised at the pushing, not to mention the sudden burst of strength in his voice, that she actually gasped. Then she glared, yellow filling the whole of her eye.

Fine. Two could play at the Scripture game.

Before Jesus could act, Crawley thrust both hands out. In the blink of an eye (though she didn't really blink) and a rush of light and wind, the mountain chasm vanished.

They stood on the edge of a flat roof, above grand white courtyards dotted with tiny figures. The Temple of Jerusalem, a place that Jesus, a practicing Jew, would know well. The wind carried a strong blend of incense and smoke from the offerings. Jesus wavered. He had lost his staff and his legs were weak as a newborn foal's, and instinctively he reached out to clutch at Crawley's robes, fear pulsing from his being. She smirked. Yes. He was still very, very afraid of death.

"Bread's not tempting enough for you, then, hm?" she asked. "How about a grand entrance? Look at all those people in the temple. Burning creatures one after the other, crying to the skies, begging for a liberator to free them from Roman rule. Hoping that their sacrifice will be the one to make the Almighty care enough."

"I was not sent to destroy the Romans, but to offer grace," said Jesus. "They are also my Father's children."

"Grace, war, whatever. How long has it been since She's said anything at all to your people, hm?"

"Four hundred years," Jesus stammered, nearly a whisper.

"Four hundred years of silence! And now you're here. Why make them wait to find out?"

"It is not yet time," he said.

"Every day, another orphan starves, another woman's raped, another man dies a slave," said Crawley. "Every second you wait to save the world is more blood shed."

Jesus was quiet for a while. "What would you have me do?" he finally asked.

Crawley hesitated as well. She hadn't thought this far; only that the sight of the temple might elicit some kind of response, which it had. She racked her brain for the first line of Jewish Scripture she could remember.

"Doesn't it say — those songs, David's, I think? '_ He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.' _If the Almighty sent you...show them. Just take a step."

She gestured to the empty space below them. The thirty-foot drop. Jesus' gaze followed the hand gesture and, inwardly, she pumped her fist, excited that one of her harebrained improvised schemes was working. He would realize the foolishness of his delusion, he would become scared, he would realize that the Almighty wasn't going to intercede for him at all. Or if he tried to jump anyway, he'd at least realize it on the way down.

But neither of those things happened. Instead, Jesus let go of Crawley's arm, pointed a finger in her face, and said, "You put that Scripture back in context or _so help me Father. _It is written — "

And from his mouth poured words that she knew.

Crawley jolted.

It flashed before her eyes, like a life before the moment of death — a burst and scream of light. The pain was indescribable. Burning and burning and burning as her — his_ — _ their body convulsed, scrambling the empty sky, help me help me please god, and the tattered scattered _feathers, _light draining from their eyes gold flakes flurrying behind them a voice like lightning in the terrible words

**_"DO NOT TEST THE LORD YOUR GOD."_**

And then it was gone. Before her was only a frail young man, barely strong enough to glare up at her.

Crawley jerked her arms out and Jerusalem disappeared. She didn't know where she wanted to go, couldn't think straight enough to analyze Jesus and conjure up the place that might make him break, she didn't care. When the smoke cleared, they stood atop a mountain. The peak rose from the ocean, the sky an expanse of stars so bright that they almost seemed within reach, the surface of the water clear and still as a mirror.

She didn't even notice that her wings were out until she saw that her feet were several inches off the ground. Jesus sat below her, hunched over the wound in his chest. He was pathetic. It sickened her.

"What will it take for you to figure it out?!" Crawley demanded. "The Almighty's not going to save you! Not from this death, not from whatever one She schemed up for you, not _ever!" _

"Be still!" Jesus snapped.

For a terrifying, confused second, Crawley actually obeyed. Then the moment passed.

"You don't know who you're dealing with," said Crawley, touching down to the ground again. "Who _She _really is."

"Neither do you," he retorted.

"I have _Fallen, _boy, I know far more about the nature of your God than you ever could. You think I decided to Fall, just for the giggles? Ha! I — I Fell because I was stupid enough to believe that She'd understand. What it was like to doubt. What it was like to be flawed, to ask questions, to _love — _to love anything!"

Her voice trembled dangerously on the verge of a shout, and drops of spittle flew unbidden from her mouth. But Jesus did not wince as before. Just looked at his bruised feet and calloused hands. Thinking.

Crawley swore. For no particular reason than to vent some of this bubbling frustration. Stretching her wings, she took to the sky again. The water rippled as she passed over it, changing color and form. The night skyline of Rome spread across the surface. Stone temples and blazing torches, the hum of cheerful nightlife in the streets.

"I can see it in you, you're so much more than a carpenter from Galilee," said Crawley. "You can have anything. You can go anywhere."

She jerked her hand. Rome vanished. Luoyang, China appeared. Then El Mirador, the Mayan Empire. Napata, the Kingdom of Kush. Pratishthana, the Satavahana Empire. Kingdoms of this time and past times and times perhaps to come. Though she couldn't tell the future, it felt as if the fabric of time was just a little more wrinkled here. The lights and colors blazed and burned her eyes, but she couldn't stop; she was going mad.

"All of these — anywhere — I'd give you. I can pull strings. I know people. Just please, _please _, I can't watch one more person throw their life away for a God who doesn't care!"

Her voice caught. Her wings stuttered in air and her knees slammed into the ground. _Fuck. _She hadn't cried about this in centuries. When was she going to learn that it wouldn't change anything now? What kind of demon was she, pitying herself over God's rejection?

She tried to will it away. She was usually good at doing that, pushing her emotions into a little tight ball in the center of her chest and swallowing, swallowing, swallowing it deeper down. Her fingers crushed the sand into her palms. She burst out coughing. _Fuck, fuck, fucking shit, _it burned. Body jerking in air. Wings twitching and scrambling for purchase. Throat tightening and a little spot on the side of her face like a hot poker was being pressed into it, a brand —

And then a touch.

A hand on her shoulder. It had been a long time since someone touched her kindly like this. Even the angel (it hurt her to think of him) was hesitant. It shocked her. She went still, breathless. She didn't need air. But it felt like someone had held the breath for her, like someone else had lifted their hand and stopped time.

The man crawled to her side. Softly, so softly, he lifted her chin and wiped her cheek with his thumb, taking a single tear.

"What was it like, Falling?"

She met his eyes. Then she told him.

* * *

Crawley had had four thousand years to think about it at that point, and never once did she come to a conclusion. Sometimes, she thought that she did, but years or weeks or even hours later she'd realize the conclusion was just another pit stop in a journey with no end. Experiencing the full of God's wrath was the type of thing that transcended both dimension and description. Her thoughts were confused and conflicted and conflicting, taking shape in breathless run-ons and senseless metaphors. She cried a couple more times. Jesus was very patient with her, just listening and nodding — not necessarily in agreement, but with a solemn understanding that suggested they weren't quite so different after all.

"But that's ridiculous," she finished, sniffling. "You don't have to worry about any 'oall that. It'll never happen to you."

She was lying on a rock, her face to the stars. Jesus sat on the ground, writing notes in the sand. He inhaled.

"I wouldn't say not to worry about it," he said.

"I would! The Almighty only _sometimes _takes Her full wrath out on humanity, and it's prolly not gonna be within your lifetime. Give it 'nother four thousan'. Six thousan'. Your great, great, great, something-great grandkids. You, though, you got thirty, forty more years on you. Go live 'em."

Jesus looked like he wanted to say something, but held it back.

Instead he said, "So it never was about me, was it?"

"Beg your pardon?"

"Why you took this temptation," Jesus continued. "It's personal to you."

"I take the assignments I'm given."

"But is it just an assignment?"

"Well — if I had a choice, I wouldn't be doing it, I'd be, oh, probably at a king's bathhouse, convincing one of the elders to take a shit in the pool — "

"As utterly hilarious as that mental image is, you're avoiding the question," said Jesus.

Crawley threw out her arms in a dramatic shrug. "Fine! Maybe that's it. Can't help but see myself in everything that's dumb enough to have a little faith sometimes. But that's not who I am anymore. If I took this assignment for any personal reason, it's because I _know better _now, you understand?"

"You don't sound very happy about knowing better."

"Knowledge isn't a happy thing."

"But is it good?"

"Hm?"

"Is seeking knowledge a good thing?"

"You're asking the serpent of Eden whether or not seeking knowledge is a good thing?"

Crawley intended it as a jab, but Jesus nodded sincerely.

"Who's determining good in this question?" Crawley asked cynically. "Me? God? God doesn't seem too hot on it, _ssso _, I'm going to say, according to the Divine Gold Standard, curiosity is the worst sin of all."

"I'm asking you," said Jesus.

Overhead, the stars spun, a little faster than they might if this was a real place. It wasn't. Some of these stars couldn't be seen from Earth; her favorite, Icarus, wouldn't be discovered for millennia. She just liked her blue supergiants and brought them here to admire, even if her true eyes might never see them again.

"I just don't understand why She'd give it to them, then be mad when they used it," sighed Crawley. "Putting the one thing they can't have right in front of them."

"Like the angel," said Jesus.

She inhaled sharply. For a moment, she actually wondered if she had imagined him saying it. There was no way he could know about that, much less understand what he was implying; she wasn't even sure what to think about the angel herself. A lot of variables there. She waited for Jesus to say something else, to pursue the topic on her behalf, but he didn't. Scowling, she sat up.

"It's baiting," she hissed. "It's cruel."

"It's free will," said Jesus.

"That'd be a great perspective on it. If it meant something."

"How do you mean?"

"Isn't it written? Free will means nothing when your fate's predestined. They do good, they do bad, it doesn't matter, they're still having their world taken away for, what's it, the _Great Plan. _"

Jesus did not respond.

"Better yet," she sniffed, "raises the question, why She'd create them at all if the only end was destruction."

"But does it have to be?" asked Jesus.

"Does what have to be?"

"Destruction. Is it the only end?"

She made a face. "Careful. That's the sort of question that gets you pushed down the stairs by Sandalphon."

Jesus winced.

"You think I haven't asked that before?" she said. "Listen — I've tried. Both sides, actually."

"What did they tell you?"

"Oh, they said, yeah, pretty much, the world will endure for something something years, there will be a war between Heaven and Hell, and then all the humans will end in fire and flame. It is written. It's — "

"Ineffable," Jesus finished.

Crawley gave him a look. "You know, why am I even talking to you. If I wanted neverending theological debate, I know better people to have it with."

"Like the angel."

"First of all — that's none of your business. Second of all, even if it is secretly your business, you'd never understand how mucked up it is right now, so find some way to not make it your business."

The whole time, Jesus' mouth moved closer to a smile until it was a full grin. She huffed and pulled her robes tighter around her.

"I can let you die, you know," she scoffed. "We can be back in that chasm before you can say 'alleluia'."

"But you wouldn't do that," said Jesus, still grinning.

"You don't know that."

"I'm feeling lucky."

Another angry huff, but more like a hiss. She stood up and began to pace, as she tended to do. She had a lot of anxious energy and nowhere to put it. This had to be some kind of record for longest near-death desanctification ever, but no matter what Crawley tried, she couldn't understand this fellow. Sometimes it seemed like he was agreeing with her, but from his mouth would come something closer to a disagreement. It was like playing a game against someone reading from a different rulebook, but who wouldn't tell you what was different about the two, just changed the subject and smiled all the time.

The man was incredibly smart; Crawley had to give him that. But he seemed to run on a different operating system than the rest of the world, some other dimension's version of smart. Surely, it all made sense to him. But the thoughts of madmen were always at home at their birthplace.

"Perhaps," Jesus began again, "the end of the world _isn't _absolute."

"That's just wishful thinking."

"Perhaps it's an impasse."

This time, Crawley wasn't sure how to respond. "An impasse," she echoed. "What, like God would write Herself into a situation She couldn't get out of?"

Jesus frowned. "In a manner of speaking."

Yes, she decided. The man was either a blasphemer or downright insane, and she was gradually favoring the latter. But she was curious. "Humor me."

"If we understand the Father to be holy," said Jesus, "that is, all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good — "

"You know how I feel about that last one."

" — for the sake of the argument, Crawley. If we understand the Father to be a certain state of faultless, then to live in harmony with Them requires you to be the same state of faultless. Otherwise — simply being in Their presence would destroy you. Think of a room where every wall is formed of pure light; there are no shadows in this room, and if you were to carry a shadow into the room, it would vanish."

Something began closing up in Crawley's throat. When she spoke again, her voice came out faint, weak. "Doesn't sound like a problem the humans should pay for."

"The Almighty's nature cannot tolerate evil for the same reason the light always obliterates darkness," replied Jesus. "The reason heat energy will always negate cold. The reason the universe is an experiment in decay, the reason it is pulling itself apart, the reason order can only crumble slowly into balance. What's the concept — entropy? That chaos is the natural state of matter, and order is a temporary measure?"

"But that's not an argument of philosophy," said Crawley. "That's _science. _When did a carpenter learn so much about bloody science?"

"Four thousand years ago."

"Hilarious."

"Time is but a pause from eternity."

"Not wrong, but besides the point."

"Philosophy and physics aren't so different, my child. In gifting humankind with free thought, the Almighty created a natural enemy to entropy, and this is the impasse. Nowhere else in the universe will you find a system that rebels so strongly against natural disorder. So strongly against _balance _. We have the kingdoms, the temples, even the bread for this very reason, because humankind can create things more powerful than the present state of nature — they can create things that do not normally exist. Money. Government."

He smiled wanly before adding, "Even organized religion. Animals, it's so simple, they are born, they grow, they die, returning to the dust from which they were made. They don't need an empire. They don't need to die rich. They pass on with only peace, as if knowing that their atoms are one generation closer to the perfect equilibrium of eternity. But it is human nature to battle with death, natural selection, and consequences for one's actions. It is the animal brain versus the prefrontal cortex, biology versus imagined social reality, natural decay versus the free will to thrive. And the Father can do nothing but watch. Unable to touch without destroying the vacuum within, that thing that makes humans...not so much on the side of heaven or the side of hell…but their own side entirely."

_Their own side. _

Crawley sat down.

She had never thought of it like that before. Hell liked to say that the war was pretty much already won because Heaven had lost control of its humans — making the human "side", by default, Hell. Not of Heaven, therefore, of Hell. That was how the world _worked. _It was supposed to be binary; that's why it was perfect; Day and Night, Sun and Moon, Sea and Sky, Male and Female, Good and Evil… Angel and Demon. If it wasn't one, it had to be another. It couldn't be as simple as "their own side entirely".

"Then what does it matter?" Crawley asked, a little too quickly. "If She's going to destroy them all anyway, what does it matter whose side they're on?"

Jesus shrugged. "I cannot say."

"Well, you've had a lot to say the past few minutes, give it your best shot."

"It would take a very nice and very accurate series of occurrences to ensure the continuation of the earth without its destruction," said Jesus. "But the Father moves in mysterious ways. If not destroy the human race is what They decide to do, I'm sure They'll find a way."

He had on the pleasant smile of a man who knew exactly how things were going to go, or at least, had convinced himself that he knew.

"You know," said Crawley, rather impatient, "the first part of your speech suggested that you had a conclusion beyond 'I don't know'."

"Oh, I do," said Jesus. "But telling you would ruin the surprise."

"That's disappointing."

"People will be very disappointed, yes."

Crawley gave him a look. "Oh, so now you're a prophet?"

"I'm going to be a lot of things."

"Might I remind you that you're going to be a lot of dead."

"You keep saying that."

"Because it's going to happen."

"Hmm."

"It will! So if you have any more loopy end of the world predictions to taunt me with, please, by all means, say them now."

Jesus paused as he thought. He looked at the stars. His gaze fixated on one for quite a while, and when Crawley looked up too, she found that he had found Alpha Centauri.

"I came to tell the world only one thing...that I know a God who loves. A God who loves recklessly, without discretion, without condition, without end."

He looked down and met Crawley's gaze. Tears glittered in his eyes, reflecting the light of the stars.

"I'm sorry that you never knew Them," he whispered.

It was a strange sort of moment. Crawley's knee-jerk reaction was that familiar, dull anger — whenever the angel wished a blessing, or insisted that some horror of history would ultimately work for the good in the Divine Plan, or insisted upon the annoying boundaries that classed them as enemies and which Crawley _knew _to be true, but had never quite been able to grasp. She didn't like to think about these sorts of things, in the land of nuance and grey and undefinable, so, automatically, she felt anger. But for only a breath. The inhale was pointed; the exhale, staggered. She ground her teeth. She blinked.

"Was that it?" she asked stiffly.

"Yes," said Jesus, "I'm done now — " and she barely gave him enough time to blink a last time before snapping her fingers.

The desert chasm reappeared around them, glaring a harsh yellow-red that was very unpleasant after the cool blue of Crawley's night skies. The heat was thick and reeked of a dying man's flesh. Jesus was at her feet again, crumpled on the ground, barely breathing. Overhead, black crows were already beginning to circle. Jesus' eyes trained on them like an infant watching a mobile. Round and round.

"They can see your wings," he croaked. "They think of you as a kindred spirit."

Crawley put her wings back into their proper dimension and watched the birds. "And they're thinking of you as food."

Jesus gave a weak smile. Then his body spasmed, a ragged cough clawing from deep in his throat. It hurt. It hurt to see, hurt to feel the flare of fear from this poor man's heart. Crawley still couldn't decide whether he was a lunatic, a liar, or something else entirely, but it didn't matter — he would be alone as he died and that was a fate that few deserved. And she couldn't shake the feeling that his death would be no small matter. The world needed more people like him, people who were willing to listen, people who believed in love. Pressing her lips together, Crawley looked back at the sky, half hoping to see large white wings among the small black ones.

"You haven't prayed lately," observed Crawley. "Since I arrived. You were praying like all get out before you realized you were about to die, now, nothing."

"Had the impression that you didn't want me to pray."

"I'm just _saying _," Crawley said defensively. "There's an angel in the area. Stirring a few healing pools and the like."

Jesus coughed again, then leaned his head gently on the rock wall. "He has been given his share of patients. I am not among them."

"He makes room for a lot of things that aren't in the heavenly agenda. He'll get over it."

"Maybe."

"What kind of holy man are you, won't even pray in his most desperate hour? I only half expected you to do the 'curse God and die' thing, but not seeking healing, that's weird."

"It's the Plan."

"It's _weird." _

"Why are you doing this?" asked Jesus, tilting his head.

"Doing what?"

"Stalling."

"I'm not stalling."

"You're not leaving me alone to die. You're recommending healing angels."

"As a polite _courtesssy _," Crawley hissed.

"Demons aren't supposed to be polite," Jesus observed. "Demons aren't supposed to care if I pray for healing."

He was right. They weren't. Crawley turned away with a frustrated noise that resembled "mrgh". Her thoughts were spinning; she couldn't let go of what he'd said earlier — _on their own side. _How could something feel both new and familiar? Like sparks weaving through her copper hair; water trailing silver down her fingers, a question upon her gilded tongue. There were demons who couldn't, or maybe refused to, remember those types of things. But she remembered. She couldn't forget.

An idea was taking shape in her mind. She didn't like it; there was no way that it would be even _possible; _her gut curled into a whole pit of baby snakes just thinking about what might happen to her if it went wrong. It was a fantasy she had indulged upon for quite a long time, in fact, but never knowing what good — er, _evil _could come from it. At first, it just made her shake her head and start to walk away. What had been done to her could not be undone.

Unless…

She stopped in her tracks. Moving slowly, as if trying not to startle an injured animal, she turned around and looked at Jesus above the hem of her black veil.

"Some of those things you told me," she said, testing the waters, "I wouldn't think those are popular opinions among your contemporaries."

Jesus frowned. "Pardon?"

"Your fellow holy men. If you were to live, wouldn't it'd be really inconvenient to them, you stirring the pot with those kinds of theories?"

"Well, that's the idea, actually." He smiled weakly, as if understanding exactly what Crawley was thinking right now.

"Good...good. I mean — dastardly. Absolutely vile. Positively loathsome." Crawley bounced from foot to foot as she mentally ran through the process. It had been so long. Four millennia long. She bent backwards to crack each vertebrae in her back, popped her fingers in and out of their sockets a couple times, and stretched her neck two times around just for good measure. When she looked back at Jesus, the man looked a little green around the gills. Ah. Of course. Most people couldn't do that sort of thing.

"Sorry," she said.

"That's messed up," said Jesus.

She filed the comment away as constructive criticism and rubbed her hands together. "This will either feel a little weird, because I'm rusty, or very painful, because I could explode."

"You won't explode."

"I might. We'll see. Hold onto something."

She knelt on one knee and stretched out one hand, resting her fingertips on his forehead. Then she closed her eyes.

She thought about the loveliest things she had ever seen. Binary stars, circling lazily in each other's gravity. A common milk snake and her newly-hatched daughters, each no longer than Crawley's thumb. Children playing in a sunny field. Grass pushing through the flagstones of an ancient temple. Blue eyes and dandelion-fluff hair and a smile so bright, so divine that it should have belonged to someone much more powerful than a simple principality. _Aziraphale. _

She saw the Man before her, the next thing to lifeless, a pulse struggling, flesh cracking from dehydration. She furrowed her brow. She imagined water slowly filling the cells and veins. Infected wounds clearing and knitting back together. Sprains and twists straightening out and strengthening. Energy seeping from the hot air around them and finding a new home in the muscles of the only holy man — or whatever he was — desperate enough to let a demon heal him.

And like falling — like rising — at a million miles an hour, adrenaline surged through her. Her spine snapped straight. Her other knee buckled. With a gasp, Crawley jerked back from the man, shaking her hand as if he had burned her.

She half expected to see him worse than before. Another fraction expected a pile of ash and a fading scream. And the tiniest sliver hoped for that long-forgotten glow, the sigh of relief, the contented smile.

If the hope had been any smaller, it wouldn't have been enough.

The Man was sitting up, eyes open. Gone was the blank stare, replaced with youthful fire, a depth like polished amber, that...unnerving glint. He looked around. Up at the sky. Out at her. He grunted and pushed himself to his feet. Though tentative, his gait was level and strong; he left his walking stick behind. When he pulled the dirt- and blood-encrusted hair out of his face, Crawley saw his skin unbroken. Dirty, in desperate need of a shave, but unbroken. At his full, not-limping height, he was — and Crawley wasn't sure why she was surprised at this — rather short. He barely came up to her shoulders.

She stepped back and frowned down at him like she might a particularly cheerful child. He smiled.

"You healed me," said Jesus.

Yes, it appeared that she had.

"Well, don't go on telling the whole world," huffed Crawley. "I'll have a hard enough time explaining the fact that you're still alive to Head Office, I don't need _rumors _along with it."

Jesus nodded. "Then I shall respect your privacy. Oh, look at that — someone left a picnic lunch over there."

With unusual speed even for a man who had just undergone a miraculous healing, he hurried past her to a large flat stone, where a wicker basket was waiting with seven loaves of freshly-baked bread. A jug of water and two stone cups sat beside the food. Crawley admired the serpentine black embroidery on the red cotton napkin — sometimes details like that just manifested themselves without her putting specific thought into them. It was nice to see it happen on something nice for once.

As Jesus sat on the flat stone with his newfound lunch, the crows overhead began to slowly descend. Some perched on the rock overhangs, watching the two beings in the chasm. One brave bird hopped down to the ground, peering up with curious eyes. Jesus tossed it a couple crumbs. A few more crows found the courage to approach the man.

After a while, Crawley sat on the other end of the rock. The crows liked Jesus, but they were fascinated with Crawley. They circled her, staring, making weird little noises that almost resembled human speech.

"They want food," said Jesus.

"I'm not indulging them," said Crawley.

"Suit yourself." He scattered a whole handful of crumbs. "They really are wonderful creatures, Crawley. Oh, they get a bad rap. But they're clever." A mother crow picked up a crumb to feed her fledgeling, a young gawkish thing with speckled white-and-black feathers. "Some animals can't love. But I think these can."

"I don't like that," said Crawley suddenly.

"The birds?"

"No. The name. Crawley." She crossed her arms, bringing one hand idly up to the mark on her right cheek. "Too...squirming on the groundish."

"Changing a name is a big thing."

"Been thinking about it for a while. I don't like how it sounds, certain people saying it."

"Hmm," said Jesus knowingly. "The angel."

"Okay, I will say this once more, I don't know _how _you know about that, but stop bringing it up. It's never going to happen."

"Perhaps a name change would help."

"I think it's less of an issue of me changing my approach, and more of an issue of Aziraphale being a stick in the mud, but you know, I'll try anything by this point."

"Names have power."

"Not sure what I'd change it to. That's the problem."

The two of them were quiet for a while, watching the birds. Then Jesus said, "ahh!" in that way of just now thinking about something, or perhaps in the way of knowing the answer all along and pretending to just now think of it.

"Crowley," he suggested.

Crawley thought. It did have a ring to it. She thought for a long while more.

Then she said, "Nah."

"No?"

"Too...noble. I'll think of something."

"Suit yourself," said Jesus with a shrug, picking up the cups and the jug of water. "Some wine, my child?"

Frowning, Crawley reached for the offered cup. "Actually, that's water — "

But the last word wasn't "water" so much as it was a garbled little choke. Her nose snatched up a whiff of fermented red grapes, such a fine blend that she half thought she had imagined it at the mere suggestion of wine. But when she looked down, she saw her reflection staring back in the dark red liquid. She did a double take. Jesus was smiling.

"Cheers," he said, lifting his cup.

* * *

**End Note: Thank you for reading this fic!**

**I debated heavily with myself as to whether or not I should post this, but the discord ppl liked some of the jokes, so here you go. There's a lot of background behind a lot of the things I wrote and why I characterized Jesus in the way that I did, but I'm honestly too tired to write it out now, so if you have questions, religious, thematic, or otherwise, feel free to pm me on my tumblr, saltwaffle, or leave them in the comments below. **

**As always, reviews are love!**


End file.
